85 characters

[Minimalist]

Professor Finkelstein isolates the Patriarchal stories as a litmus test for
what we can presently know about the historical relevance of the biblical
traditions since (1) these stories with their compelling literary artistry and
canonical status hold a special place in the Judeo-Christian tradition to which
much of earlier scholarship was so closely attached, and (2) there is a long
history of that scholarship, predominantly German and Anglo-American in
origin, that can be invoked as a means of avoiding the repetition of past errors.
He then reviews some failed attempts of the past at identifying the historical
Abraham in the late-third to early-second millennia b.c.e. These include the
now well-known proposals that Abraham was a nomad-immigrant-invaderdonkey
caravaneer of Amorite origin whose contemporaries instigated the
sudden collapse of the Early Bronze Age urban system of the Levant, or that
Abraham was a tent dweller who situated himself near major cities of the
Middle Bronze period as portrayed in the Mari texts, or that Abraham and
his relatives observed such social and legal practices as the provision of surrogate
mothers and adopted slaves for childless parents that are preserved
in the second-millennium tablets from Nuzi in northern Iraq. In these and
other instances of an extraordinary claim on the part of some earlier scholars,
Finkelstein reviews the subsequent scholarly critiques that followed, and that
neutralized such claims.

Test - copied a page out of an e-book

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I think that's more than 85.


Perhaps I'm one of the "chosen" people?